


If You Give Me a Chance (All I Want Is to Protect You)

by Ellory



Series: the Black bride [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Lily Evans, Bullying, Death Eaters, F/M, Family Feels, Good Regulus Black, Never Repost My Work Anywhere, Platonic Cuddling, Protective Sirius Black, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Regulus Black Deserves Better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21624019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellory/pseuds/Ellory
Summary: Miss Lily Evans will not allow anyone to be dragged to the Dark Lord against his or her will on her watch, but especially not Master Regulus Black.
Relationships: Lily Evans & Regulus Black, Sirius Black & Regulus Black, Sirius Black/Lily Evans
Series: the Black bride [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572949
Comments: 199
Kudos: 1137





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaister](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaister/gifts).

Lily Evans was almost to the final corner of her Prefect rounds, down in the dungeons this week, and wanted nothing more than to go to bed. As it was, she was serving double-duty because Remus Lupin was in the hospital wing again. 

How the Marauders thought anyone with a lick of sense didn’t know Lupin was a werewolf was beyond her.

“Then again, there does seem to be a marked lack of common sense around here,” Lily muttered.

She folded her wool robes closer around her, shivering in the evening air. The bite of winter seemed so much worse down in the dungeons, even worse than it was in Gryffindor Tower, way up in the sky. 

“Perhaps the cold is why the Slytherins are so grumpy all the time,” Lily chuckled.

A thud and a pained gasp of air from around the corner inspired Lily to draw her wand. 

“Listen here, Black. Your brother might be a lost cause, consorting with filth, but you have potential. The Dark Lord wants to meet you. We’ve told him all about how you’re a Charms prodigy. He’s very intrigued. Come with us and your future will be brighter than ever.”

“I can’t.” 

The quiet refusal was Regulus Black. 

Lily would recognize his voice anywhere; she had lost count of how many times she had looked the other way over the years as he snuck into Gryffindor Tower past curfew to visit Sirius Black. 

Everyone who thought that James Potter was the most important person in Sirius’s life had clearly never seen his mask down around his little brother. 

There was no comparison at all.

In fact, not even a fortnight ago, she had been unable to sleep and snuck down to the common room, intending to ask a house-elf for a glass of hot chocolate. 

Instead, Lily had been treated to the sight of Sirius petting Regulus’s hair. 

Regulus shook against him and whispered, “I’m terrified they’ll kidnap me from the castle and take me to him. I d-don’t want to be Branded his slave, Siri.”

The look in Sirius’s eyes at that stuttered confession was, to this day, the most terrifying thing Lily had ever seen. 

Yet, it was the desperate clutch of white knuckles against his little brother’s back that tore at her heart. Once upon a time, before Magic, Lily and Petunia had been that close. She didn’t ever want Sirius to experience the agony of losing something as precious as a true sibling bond.

“Yes, you can, and we’ll help you get there. You don’t have to worry about not knowing how to Apparate, Black. We’ve got that covered.”

Lily swallowed the bile rising in her throat. 

Severus Snape had said that. It would be just like him to seek revenge against Sirius by hurting his little brother. 

Severus was so far from the boy Lily had known as a child, the boy she had loved as a brother, that she couldn’t even recognize him anymore. As if being a Dark Lord’s slave would somehow make him more than the poor son of a pureblood witch who married an abusive Muggle.

Straightening her shoulders, Lily turned the corner. 

Severus Snape, Rabastan Lestrange, and Bartemius Crouch Jr. had Regulus backed against a wall. Regulus’s gaze darted from one to the next, as if frantically calculating an escape. He clutched his wand so tightly that Lily wondered if it would snap.

Lily didn’t like lying. She never had. That didn’t mean she wasn’t good at it.

“Regulus, come with me. Sirius demands your attendance on a family matter,” Lily said. 

She extended the hand that wasn’t pointing her wand at the other Slytherins to him. Her palm was up and fingers spread—the exact manner in which witches offered a hand to one of their children or younger siblings to ensure they wouldn’t get lost in a crowded space. 

It was a gesture only used between family members. 

Lily prayed to Mother Magic that Regulus would forgive her for the overfamiliarity and take the opportunity to escape.

What little color existed in Severus’s complexion drained. 

“What . . . ?”

“It’s almost time for curfew. The rest of you should be getting back to your common room,” Lily said, gaze flicking over them dismissively. 

It was confidence, not arrogance. Lily knew she would be able to defeat them if one of them started a fight. Professor Flitwick wasn’t giving her extra lessons in Charms, despite the rumors. He was instructing her in dueling.

Lestrange offered her a smile he probably thought was charming. It wasn’t. 

“We were just heading back to the common room now, Miss Evans. Weren’t we, Barty?”

“Yes, we were.”

The two turned away; the instant they did, Regulus lunged forward and latched onto her hand, twining his fingers with hers. 

The spasm of pain on Severus’s face filled her with spiteful delight. 

Lily didn’t say another word to Severus, just spun around and said, “Come along, Regulus. Don’t let go.”

“I won’t, Lily,” Regulus stated, as if he had spoken the words hundreds of times before.

And if Severus let out a strangled sob behind her, well, that wasn’t her business anymore, was it?

Lily rubbed her thumb across the back of Regulus’s hand as she led him up to Gryffindor Tower. She knocked once on Professor McGonagall’s guardian portrait as she passed, so her Head of House would know she had finished her Prefect Rounds. 

She didn’t relax her grip on her wand until she stood before the Fat Lady.

“Password?” the Fat Lady asked, though she wasn’t looking at Lily. 

“Excalibur,” Lily said, smiling as the Fat Lady craned her neck even farther in an attempt to see Regulus better.

“Just so,” the Fat Lady huffed. 

The portrait swung open.

Regulus’s hand jerked in her grasp, clutching even tighter. 

A glance over her shoulder revealed he was staring at their hands in awe. And Lily wondered, as she had since the first bitter mutter out of Sirius’s lips about his mother, if Lady Walburga Black had anything to do with the raising of her sons. If so, it didn’t seem like affection had played a part in it.

Lily stepped into the common room, leading Regulus behind her, and ignored the rapid quiet that fell across the room in a wave. She marched toward the staircase that led to the girls’ dorms.

“Evans, what . . . ?” 

Potter stood at the bottom of the staircase to the boys’ dorms, a set of exploding snap cards in his hands. He looked from her to Regulus repeatedly, then followed their arms down to their joined hands. 

Upset and frustration were easy to read on his face.

“Not now, Heir Potter,” Lily sighed. 

Interacting with him made her feel awful, because she knew that he genuinely loved her. Lily didn’t feel the same at all. If he ever got over his feelings, she thought Potter would make a good friend. Anything more than that was never going to happen.

Lily used her magical authority as a Prefect to lead Regulus right up the staircase to the girls’ dorms, preventing it from turning into a slide, and to her personal room. 

Having her own room was the best perk of being a Prefect. She didn’t understand why Lupin would forgo that; it was so much easier to study in silence, without constant interruptions and distractions. 

She glanced at the half-finished Potions essay on her desk, before deciding to finish it tomorrow during her free period. Regulus needed her attention more than an essay for which Professor Slughorn was sure to give her near-perfect marks.

“L-Lily?” Regulus stumbled over her name, as if he weren’t sure the informality would be allowed now that they were away from the Death Eater audience.

Two quick swishes of her wand Transfigured their school robes into comfortable pajamas. Lily leaned down and kissed his forehead, heart aching as his mouth dropped open in disbelief. She released his hand, turned down the covers, and then sat back against her pillows. 

“Come here, Regulus.” 

She patted the mattress beside her.

Regulus didn’t ask if she was sure. He clambered on the bed beside her, latched onto her like a favorite plush toy, and then burst into tears.

Lily hummed a lullaby as she stroked his curly hair. Regulus looked even smaller than normal curled up at her side. His first magical bestowing hadn’t hit yet, but she assumed it would any day. Sirius shot up almost six inches when he was Regulus’s age, going from tiny to towering almost overnight, it seemed.

“You’re safe, Regulus. The Dark Lord can’t have you,” Lily whispered.

The door to her chambers opened. 

Lily wasn’t surprised to see Sirius Black standing there. Impressed, perhaps, that he had managed to figure out how to get through her punitive wards, but not surprised in the least. It would be no effort at all for him to sweet-talk one of the other female Prefects into bringing him up the stairs to check on his brother.

“I wish you were my sister for real,” Regulus whispered. 

It was loud in the silence of the room as Lily stared right into Sirius’s gray eyes. 

“That you would love me and never send me away.” 

Regulus burrowed closer and set his head right on her chest. Sirius lurched forward, only to still when Lily didn’t shove Regulus off the bed or curse him.

Lily kissed Regulus’s forehead again. 

“Get some sleep, Regulus. No Death Eaters can get you here. I’ll keep watch.”

As if that was what he desperately needed to hear, Regulus slumped against her entirely. His eyes closed and he was out faster than a Lumos that had been Noxed.

Sirius entered her chambers and shut the door. Lily bit her lip at the heat in his eyes, something she was accustomed to seeing on Potter’s face. Sirius Transfigured his clothes into pajamas and approached her bed. He stopped right beside it and waited, silent.

“If you get in this bed, Heir Black, you will  _ never _ get in another witch’s bed the rest of your life,” Lily whispered.

Sirius’s face scrunched and his eyes went shiny with tears. 

“Merlin, I hope James will someday forgive me for this.” 

He settled beneath the covers, his head pillowed on her other breast. 

“By my word, be my betrothed.”

Lily smiled and kissed the top of his head as the betrothal bond magic stirred in her core. 

“By your word.”

Sirius tilted his head back and stared right at her, something dark and heavy and possessive in his stare. 

“I’ll never give you cause to regret this,” he said.

And as Lily thought on all she knew of Sirius Black, of how he loved violently with his whole heart, of how he would literally do  _ anything at all  _ for the people he considered his, Lily only had one response she could give. 

“I believe you.”


	2. Chapter 2

Lily fell asleep part-way through her watch, but she woke up at 6:00 a.m. sharp out of habit. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a habit she could break on just the weekends. She yawned. As she attempted to stretch–only to realize one of her arms was immobile–she remembered what had happened the evening before.

Morgana, Potter was going to be livid when he found out what she and Sirius had agreed upon the night before. She couldn’t regret it, though. Maybe it was because Potter was an only child, maybe it was because he was spoiled rotten, maybe it was because of his unintentionally overbearing cockiness–whatever it was, it made Potter unappealing to Lily romantically.

Sirius, on the other hand, had been surprising her since first year.

Before Regulus started at Hogwarts and was Sorted, Sirius had written him a letter every single day. Lily had seen him turn down Quidditch matches on the weekend, rush through essays that would affect their end-of-term-grades, write with a shaking hand while confined to a bed in the hospital wing, and even blow off the Marauders when they were planning a huge prank, all so he could write his brother. Regulus answered every letter.

It touched her heart, even as it hurt.

Because Lily had written Petunia a letter every single week for three years; Petunia never once wrote her back.

And once Regulus came to Hogwarts, Sirius proved himself true to the wizard she thought he was. She caught him helping Regulus study in the library. Lily overheard them plotting to meet in the kitchens after curfew so they could have a late night snack. She saw Sirius sneaking out at dawn so Regulus could ride Sirius’s broom, since Regulus wasn’t allowed his own as a first year.

Lily watched and learned.

She learned that Sirius wasn’t perfect, but he was as close to her idea of perfect as a wizard could reasonably get.

And now …

“You think loudly,” Sirius whispered, his breath brushing across her neck.

Lily shivered and blushed. “Sorry, I”–she took a calming breath and confessed–”I don’t know how to stop that. My entire family are Muggles. I didn’t have any bonds before last night.” 

The words hurt to say, because Lily had been alone in magic her entire life. If Sirius hadn’t come to her last night, she might have eventually given in to Potter, just so she wouldn’t have to bear the aching loneliness anymore.

“You don’t have to worry about that ever again,” Sirius stated as if his words were fact and always would be. “It’s okay to explore it, Lily. I don’t mind.”

Tentatively, Lily reached for their betrothal bond in her core. It was thin, but she got an impression of resolute strength from it. It wouldn’t break. 

“Go ahead,” Sirius insisted, when her magic stopped just shy of touching it.

The instant Lily touched the bond, her gaze shot right to Regulus. He was still sleeping against her chest, his black curly hair falling into his eyes. She couldn’t believe what she felt. It was love, love beyond all possibility of description. Through their betrothal bond, Lily felt the magical bond from her future husband to Regulus Black and gaped.

“He’s–” 

Lily stroked Regulus’s curls gently, love bleeding over the bond; she knew she could stop the magical influence if she wanted to do so. She didn’t.

“Regulus is your son in Magic,” Lily whispered, as if terrified speaking her discovery aloud would cause the child sleeping in her arms undue harm.

Sirius’s gray eyes narrowed to slits. “Yes, he is.”

“How in the world … ?” 

Sirius’s jaw clenched as he bit out, “Walburga thought Regulus needed to learn a lesson the hard way. Orion wasn’t going to stop her–so I did.” 

He trembled against her side, and Lily stroked his hair in an attempt to soothe him. It pained him to speak of it, obviously, and she almost regretted asking. Yet, if she were to bond with him (and nothing but death would get her to give Sirius Black up now) then she needed to understand him.

“I invoked Mother Magic’s name and called on her for Judgment, because nothing could be worse than being under their control another minute,” Sirius said, eyes haunted and bitter.

“She answered, I take it?”

Sirius smiled a particularly bloodthirsty smile and said, “She Severed the bonds Walburga and Orion had with us, leaving them raw and oozing on their ends. She Erased all damage of them from our minds, magic, and souls. And then”–Sirius brushed the back of his hand against Regulus’s cheek–”She said I would be Regulus’s father in magic, for I had proven my love and protection for him by defending him against our own blood.”

Lily tried to fight back the tears that wanted to fall as the horrors the two wizards in her arms had faced were revealed to her. Sirius was only sixteen years old. He was the bravest man she had ever known.

A tear trickled down her cheek as Lily asked her final question. “How old were you?”

Sirius was haunted, yet proud, as he answered her, “Seven.”

* * *

Lily smiled softly as Regulus snuggled against her chest and yawned. He reached up and rubbed at his eyes, reminding her of a little kid. Then he opened his eyes and blushed. Regulus jerked backwards, and Lily only barely kept him from falling off the bed and onto the floor with an arm looped around his small shoulders.

_“I’m so sorry—”_

“It’s okay, Regulus. You’re okay,” Lily rushed to assure him.

He stared down at his hands, which were clutching each other so tightly they were white. “I didn’t mean to infringe on your person in such a manner, Miss Evans. Please … please don’t tell Sirius. He’ll be so disappointed in me.”

Lily gently took Regulus’s chin in her hand — and vowed to punch Walburga Black in the face if she ever saw the witch in person, when Regulus flinched on instinct — and said, “You didn’t do anything wrong Regulus. I’m the one who invited you into my bed to cuddle.”

Regulus flushed an even deeper red and wouldn’t meet her gaze as he whispered, “That wasn’t permission to touch your—”

Lily kissed his forehead. “I know it was innocently meant, Regulus. I didn’t mind. If I had, I would have put a stop to it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely, dear one.” Lily stroked his hair soothingly and kissed his forehead again. 

Regulus glanced up, finally, and met her gaze. “I can see why Potter loves you.”

“He’ll have to get over that,” Lily said with a slight grimace. Because she wasn’t giving up Sirius — not for anything. 

“What?” Regulus’s mouth dropped open. “Everyone’s waiting for you to put him out of his misery and agree to his Courtship offer. Even the Slytherins gossip about it in the common room.”

“James is going to have to find another witch,” Sirius said, after finishing up in the bathroom, as he leaned against the doorway. “This one’s mine.”

“What do you mean?” Regulus asked, eyes so wide and full of hope that Lily’s heart ached in her chest. “Siri, did you … did you get me a mother who will actually _love_ me?”

Tears spilled from Lily’s eyes at the raw hope in Regulus’s voice. It was so painful to hear. Walburga Black had a lot to answer for, and Lily would ensure that the witch suffered for every moment she had hurt Sirius or Regulus.

Sirius stared right at Lily as he said, “Only the best for my children,” and whispered a spell Lily didn’t recognize; it made the betrothal bond between them visible.

Regulus reached out and touched it with shaking hands. Then, he curled his hands around it as if he would never let go of his own free will.

Immeasurable love filled Lily’s heart.

“It’s real? This is real?” Regulus asked. 

His face lit up brighter than Lily had ever seen it. It wasn’t enough for her. Lily wanted Sirius to know her commitment wasn’t just lip-service to the Heir of an Ancient House. Even more than that, she wanted Regulus to know that he never needed to apologize for wanting her time or attention. 

Lily needed these Blacks — _her Blacks_ — to know how serious she was once she dedicated herself to someone. Or, in this case, two someones.

With a slight smirk on her face, anticipating Sirius’s visceral reaction as she met his gaze, Lily cast the wandless spell that she had mastered at age eleven. Sheer need burned within Sirius’s gray eyes as Lily’s scarlet hair came loose and tumbled down in a glorious fall of bloody silk. He fisted both hands at his sides and shook, as if fighting to keep himself under control.

For all that he was a pureblood gentleman, the best of her acquaintance, Lily knew Sirius was only human. His magic thrummed with desire; she didn’t doubt for a second that he was imagining their bonding night, when she would present herself to him wearing nothing but her hair.

Regulus gasped a soft hiccup-sob beside her.

Lily picked up her silver hairbrush — the one Mother Magic, Herself, had Gifted to Lily — from the nearest bedside table and offered it to Regulus.

She gently brushed away the tears that fell from his eyes and said, “I offer you the Right of the Firstborn Son.”

Regulus threw himself into her arms, burying his face in her chest as he sobbed, “I a-accept. I accept.”

* * *

When the three of them left her private room, Lily steeled her nerves. 

Gryffindors might not be the brightest Lumoses in the wizarding world, but they weren’t stupid. It wouldn’t take a Ravenclaw to realize that one of the female prefects had taken Sirius up the staircase to the girls’ dorms, to check on Regulus, and that he had never come back down.

Sirius had spent the night in her room — technically, _in her bed_, though they wouldn’t know that — and there was no hiding that fact.

“I’ll curse the first person who dares to suggest anything improper,” Sirius whispered in her ear as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I’m not going to let them speculate on your virtue, Lily.”

“What’s wrong?” Regulus asked, both his arms twined possessively around her left arm.

“It’s nothing, Regulus. Let’s have breakfast. I’m famished,” Lily said with a smile.

She didn’t want him to realize the undercurrents of the situation, because she knew he would blame himself for putting her in such a situation. And even — even if someone hurled cruel words at her … even if someone called her a _slag_ and said she was unworthy of the New Blood status Mother Magic had bestowed upon her, Lily wouldn’t regret what she had done.

Lily never could have left Regulus to be dragged off to the Dark Lord by Death Eaters.

_Not ever._

Regulus blushed as his stomach rumbled. “Okay.”

She ruffled his hair and walked toward the staircase, battling the trepidation down. Anyone who was foolish enough to say anything unsavory when she had a Black on either side of her was just asking for whatever their retaliation would be. Sirius and Regulus couldn’t have possibly claimed her any more thoroughly; the ribbons Regulus had twined through her hair as he styled it were in the Black family heraldry colors, and had little embroidered Black family crests all over them.

It was about as blatant as a pureblood wizard could mark his territory without being crass.

“Good morning, Lily,” Marlene McKinnon said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“I’m glad. You’ve been working so hard with Lupin in the Hospital Wing again and all your studies. Don’t wear yourself out,” Marlene said, before turning a cutting glare on the fourth-year next to her who had a sneer on her face.

The fourth-year snapped her mouth shut and ducked her head.

“Padfoot?” sounded behind them in the softest of whispers.

Lily bit the inside of her cheek as Sirius’s magic writhed across the betrothal bond. She had known that Sirius and Potter were close. But … somehow, she hadn’t realized _precisely_ how much it would hurt Sirius to hurt Potter by _stealing her_. It felt like she imagined getting hit with a Reductor Curse would feel.

She took a fortifying breath as the three of them turned around, her Blacks still latched onto either side of her.

“Prongs,” Sirius said, voice firm, even as his magic shook.

“I—”

“She’s ours!” Regulus said, face scrunched up, as if terrified Potter would take her away from him.

“I can see that,” Potter said, gaze focused on her hair, and, no doubt, the ribbons woven through it. “I—”

Lily flinched alongside Sirius when tears appeared in Potter’s eyes. Because in all the years that she had known him, she had never seen him cry. Not even when he was hit by a Bludger in a Quidditch match and knocked clean off his broom. He’d dropped fifteen feet to the Pitch and shattered his right leg. He had laughed the entire time, because he’d managed to throw the Quaffle through the hoop in the process, right before the Gryffindor Seeker caught the Snitch, and Gryffindor beat Slytherin by ten points and won the Quidditch Cup.

“Prongs?”

“I — uh,” Potter said, pasting a smile on his face, “I don’t feel so good. Please let McGonagall know I won’t be in classes today, okay, Padfoot?”

Sirius’s voice was almost raw as he said, “Yeah, Prongs. I’ll do that.”

Lily’s heart ached. She didn’t love Potter, but … she hadn’t thought he would be _this hurt_. Not — Morgana, he was reacting like _someone had died_.

Potter stopped on the second step of the staircase back up to the boys’ dorms and said, “Padfoot?”

“Yes, Prongs?”

“Congratulations on your b-betrothal. I … I’m happy that you’re happy.”

Sirius’s mouth moved, but nothing came out. He felt utterly overwhelmed and heartsick, but joyous through their bond.

So Lily gathered her courage and answered for them, offering an intimacy she had always refused to extend. “Thank you, _James_.”

He nodded jerkily and then fled up the stairs. 

Lily watched him go. She hated that he was hurt, but she did not and would not regret it. Not for any reason. _Not ever_.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Art] If You Give Me a Chance (All I Want Is to Protect You)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21678463) by [Kaister](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaister/pseuds/Kaister)
  * [Hers In Honour If She Wished It](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21822067) by [FalconHonour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalconHonour/pseuds/FalconHonour)


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